= (yo . % * 


My 






‘THE AMERICAN MUSEUM: 
OF NATURAL HISTORY — 


VO XN PARTONT S <. 2 


- 





_- THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE INCA. 
BY ; A Pay 
4 be ~ , i ry 


%, 


-- CHARLES W. MEAD 


«fe 






Ss NATURAL 
IA, History 


a Deca ges 











: As a ae | r 
ge a , a i a? nie 
s wet . » ~~ 
me ito | r 
: ” » Ve : 
} ‘ Sit: 


# ie | PA lis a : | ae aah pe Oe ee 
AMERICAN MUSEUM PRESS, } MES 
ees NEW ORK chs oo oe mae 
ef of ? + 1924 2 , ae 7 ms 


Kom . Pa _ y * . 


, 














AuTHOR’s NOTE 


Most of the text in this paper appeared under the present title in 
1903, as a Guide Leaflet, supplementary to the American Museum 
Journal. At that time no one had given the subject much attention, 
and, though a number of musical instruments were to be found in mu- 
seum collections, absolutely nothing was known concerning the music 
of the ancient Peruvians. However, during the twenty or more years 
that have passed, additional instruments have been discovered and 
several competent investigations made into the character of the ancient 
music itself as found still surviving in Peru and Bolivia. In all, a large 
number of songs has been collected from the Indians of the Sierras, quite 
a number of which are in the pentatonic, or five-toned scale, which is 
generally regarded as the first stage in real musical development. All 
these studies and the new material they have brought to light, made 
it possible to add new matter and thus make what is, in the main, 
a new paper. 


| Charles W. Mead. 
June, 1924 


315 





CONTENTS 


a ST 2 lI RAE AS eli ae SR ee ee eae ade SAE eh a 
Peers Obs MRCUSSION.... 2.514 cbceec ce cel ee cc cee ehh ees 


Ie to sk. te Fee ene. deleted eke gs 


een tents kk, oe ee ee ee ete ion 


TE OM eh Fs SN RE Loe Le Lay a Pie e a ve Ld hd mee ae ete 
Double Whistling Jar.. 


DTRINGED INSTRUMBENTS......:.......0.- 00 c eee ap ete: 
ete ee ene ed rt Eee eh Pe ae Te re i ee i 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
PLATES 


V.. Decorations from Ancient Peruvian Terra Cotta Vessels showing 


Musical Instruments in Use. 


VI. Musical Instruments: Drums, Rattles, Bells and Cymbals. 


VII. Musical Instruments: Trumpets and Rattles of Shell and a Syrinx. 
VIII. Musical Instruments: Whistles, Panpipes, Syrinx, and Trumpet. 


— 


COND on 


IX. Types of Peruvian Flutes. 


Text FIGURES 


PAGE. 
Prehistoric Panpipe from Grave in Ica, Peru 327 
a, Section of the Cane of one Reed in the Panpipe et in Fig. 1; User 
- End of a Reed in the Panpipe shown in Fig. 1. 329 
Terra Cotta Panpipe from Grave in Nazca, Peru. Courtesy ah Nes Mu- 
seum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation 331 
Terra Cotta Panpipe from Grave in Nazca, Peru. Courtesy sf the Mi- 
seum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation 332 
Bone Flutes : 336 
Terra Cotta Flute from a Peahietons Craia at rae Per 340 
Gold Ornament from “Trujillo, Peru : . . 841 
Blowing a Shell Trumpet in Prehistoric Matic’ tors a “pletorial manu- 
script in the Florentine Biblioteca Nazionale, Folio 23 342 


317 





INTRODUCTION 


Ancient Peru, the land of the Inca, extended, according to the 
historians, Garcilasso de la Vega' and Prescott,? from about the second 
degree of north latitude to the Maule River in Chile, about the thirty- 
sixth degree of south latitude. The country included the region now com- 
prised within the Republic of Peru, and the greater part of Ecuador, 
Bolivia, and northern Chile, and was nearly equal in size to that part of 
the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The Inca had no written 
language, and no small part of our knowledge of their customs has been 
derived from their practice of representing the scenes of daily life in the 
decoration of their pottery vessels. In the study of the musical instru- 
ments, in particular, the decorations on the pottery of the ancient Peru- 
vians is important, because the Spanish conquerors and their followers 
have left in their accounts but little information bearing upon the subject. 
From the pottery and other objects found in the ancient tombs and burial 
places, therefore, we have derived most of our knowledge of the musical 
instruments of the Inca. The present discussion is based upon a study 
of the prehistoric Peruvian collections in the American Museum of 
Natural History. In these collections are not only many of the musical 
instruments themselves, but also artifacts, principally pottery vessels, 
decorated with figures of men in the act of playing upon such instruments. 

It is commonly said that “ Peru is a puzzle’’; certainly this may be 
truthfully said of its music. Although we find recorded a number of 
characteristic songs, known to the Peruvian Indians for nearly two 
hundred years, we cannot say positively of any one of them that it is 
wholly pre-Spanish. Dr. von Tschudi has published three Peruvian 
elegiac songs or haravis? which he says ‘might serve to test the musical 
knowledge of the ancient Peruvians,”’ but an examination of these pieces 
is very disappointing. Carl Engel remarks:— 

At all events they must have been tampered with, as they exhibit exactly the 
form of the Spanish bolero. Even allowing that the melodies of these compositions 
have been derived from Peruvian haravis, it is impossible to determine with any degree 
of certainty how much in them has been retained of the original tunes, and how much 


has been supplied besides the harmony, which is entirely an addition of the Kuropean 
arranger. 


The first and simplest element of music is rhythm, and in singing or 
dancing, a desire for some sound that shall clearly mark it, is universal; 
hence, in the absence of musical instruments, the custom of snapping the 





1Royal Commentaries of Peru. Ed. Rycaut, Part I, Book, I, Chap. III. 

2Prescott, William H., History of the Conquest of Peru, vol. 1, 28. : 

3Tschudi, Juan Diego y Rivero, Mariano E., Antiguedades Peruanas, (Vienna, 1851), 135, 136. 
4Musical Instruments, 79. 


319 


320 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


fingers, clapping the hands, beating the hips and stamping the feet; and 
I am inclined to follow Rowbotham! in believing that the art of instru- 
mental music in prehistoric times passed through three stages, which 
may be designated the ‘‘drum”’, the “‘pipe’’, and the “‘lyre” type. The 
first type includes all instruments of percussion, as drums, rattles, gongs, 
castanets, etc.; the second, all wind instruments; and the third, all 
stringed instruments. In support of this theory he cites the evidence 
furnished by the mechanical complexity of the instruments themselves. 
The drum is the simplest form; the pipe is more complex than the drum; 
and the lyre, which makes use of stretched strings, is the most complex of 
all. | 
That the drum was the first instrument of primitive man is strenu- 
ously opposed by Wallaschek, who says :— 

The most ancient discoveries (from the youth of mankind) of flutes and pipes, 
but not of drums, are definite facts which no speculation can put aside, and I am 
rather inclined to believe that Wagener was correct in saying that a wind instrument 
was undoubtedly the first.” 
The entire absence of drums and the large number of flutes in the pre- 
historic Peruvian collections in museums would seem to support this — 
claim in Peru were it not for the fact that numerous pottery vessels 
decorated with figures in the act of beating the drum are found with 
mummies in the ancient graves. (See Plate V). 

The fact that a tribe has flutes and no drums is not proof that its 
earliest instrument was not the drum for there are well-known cases of 
the “dropping out”’ of musical instruments. In Guatemala the marimba 
has become a national instrument. Professor O. T. Mason, referring to 
this instrument, says:— 

In one case we have a musical instrument imported by negro slaves given to the 
Indians with its native African name and abandoned by the negroes themselves.* 





1Rowbatham, J. F., ‘‘ Art of Music in Prehistoric Times’’ (Journal, Anthropological Institute of 
Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 10, 380-388, London, 1881). 2 . 

2Wallaschek, Richard, Primitive Music. An Inquiry into the Origin and Development of Music, 
Songs, Instruments, Dances, and Pantomimes of Savage Races. London, 1893. 

3Mason, Otis T., ‘‘Geographical Distribution of the Musical Bow” (American Anthropologist, 


vol. 10, 377-380, 1897). 


INSTRUMENTS OF PERCUSSION 


In instruments of this class the drum undoubtedly held the first 
place, although, as has been stated, none has been found in the ancient 
graves up to the present time. This may be accounted for by the perish- 
able material of which they: were made; or, through the existence of 
some superstition on account of which they may never have been buried 
with the dead. However this may be, the numerous representations on 
pottery vessels, and the accounts of early writers, give us a fairly accurate 
idea of their form and construction. | 

Drums. The drums appear to be identical with those in use in many 
parts of Peru today and were made by stretching a skin over a hoop of 
wood or over one end of a short section of the trunk of a tree which had 
been hollowed out to a thin cylinder. These two forms of drum are shown 
on Plate. VI, where two men (Figs. 7 and 10) are beating very thin drums, 
which seem to represent the hoop form, while another drummer (Fig. 9) 
plays upon one much thicker, which is probably of the second type. 
Judging from these representations, the drums would not exceed fourteen 
or fifteen inches in diameter. We are told frequently by early writers 
that small drums were used on different occasions; but no mention of 
larger ones, So common in many Indian tribes, has been found. The Abbé 
Molina, describing the method of curing the sick, says :— 

The Machi directs the women who are present to sing with aloud voice a doleful 
song, accompanied with the sound of some little drums, which they beat at the same 
time. i> 
Doubtless the heads of these drums were usually made of the skin of the 
deer and other animals common to the country, but this was not always 
the case. The Huancas “flayed the captives they took in. war, making 
some of the skins into drums.’ Garcilasso says:— 

They were a sort of fierce and warlike people fleaing those whom they took in the 
wars, the skins of which they filled with ashes and hanged them up in the temples for 
trophies; with the skins of some they make drums, being of opinion that the sound of 
them would terrify their enemies.* 

Bells. Copper bells, in form resembling our sleigh bells, appear to 
have been in common use. Figs. 2,3,and 4 of Plate VI show three, each 
of which has a pebble in the cavity. Fig. 1 shows a flattened form, deco- 
rated on either side with a figure, probably representing the sun. This 


Ce Abbe Don J. Ignacius, The Geographical, Natural and Civil History of Chili (Middletown, 
1808), 92. 
2Cieza de Leon, Pedro de, ‘‘ Travels of Cieza de Leon, A.D. 1532-50, contained in the First Part 
of his Chronicles of Peru’”’ (Hakluyt Edition, translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, London, 
1864), 299. ; 

8Royal Commentaries of Peru, Part 1, Book 6, Chap. 10. 


321 


ol 


322 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


bell has been broken, and the pebble or “clapper” is missing. Cieza de 
Leon, who is perhaps the most reliable of the contemporaneous writers, 
remarks :— 

When the chiefs [Guayaquil, Ecuador] were sick, to appease the wrath of their 
gods, and pray for health, they made other sacrifices of a superstitious nature; killing 
men (as I was told), and believing that human blood was a grateful offering. In 
doing these things they sounded drums and bells before certain idols shaped like 
lions and tigers, which they worshipped.! 


In the Museum collection there are three bronze objects, circular in 
outline and slightly concavo-convex, each having a projection perforated 
for suspension. When struck with any hard substance, they give out a 
remarkably clear and resonant sound. One of these is shown as Plate VI, 
Fig. 12. It is three and seven-eighths inches in diameter. Ewbank, 
describing Sefior Barboza’s collection of Peruvian antiquities, figures 
three of these objects, two of which he states are of copper and one of — 
bronze. He says: ‘I took them for mirrors; but they do not seem to 
have been polished.’ None of the three in the Museum shows any indi- 
cation, on either side, of having been polished, and there seems to be no 
reason to doubt that they were used as gongs or bells. 

Rattle and Cymbal. Of the various forms of rattles it is hardly neces- 
sary to speak in detail. They consisted of small shells and nuts, seeds of a 
species of laurel tree, etc., and were often strung together. (See Plate VI, 
Fig. 8 and Plate VII, Figs. 5, 7, 8.) These were attached to the wrists, 
ankles, and other parts of the body in dancing. A common form of rattle 
was a gourd containing seeds or pebbles. The use of shells as paint cups 
or palettes was very common, as is attested by numerous specimens which 
still contain paint found in graves; but their use as musicai instruments 
in ancient Peru, has not been noticed before. Figs. 5 and 6 of Plate VI, 
represent water vessels of terra cotta, decorated with figures striking 
shells together, as cymbals are played. The ‘‘cymbals” are so well 
modeled that there can be no doubt that they represent Spondylus 
(Spondylus pictorum, Chem.) shells. (Plate VI, Fig. 11.) 


1Travels of Cieza de Leon, 203. 
2Ewbank, Thomas, Life in Brazil; or a Journal of a Visit to the Land of the Cocoa and the Palm 
(New York, 1856), Appendix, 454. 


WIND INSTRUMENTS 


Syrinz or Panpipe. Long before the Conquest the Peruvians had 
emerged from the first or drum stage, and reached the second, which C. 
K. Wead defines as that “having instruments mechanically capable of 
furnishing a scale’’!—a tremendous stride in the art. The most impor- 
tant instruments of this class are the syrinx or panpipe (huayra puhura) 
and the flutes of boneandcane. Plate VIII, Fig. 7 shows asyrinx consist- 
ing of eight reeds of graduated lengths, held in position by a crosspiece 
of split cane lashed to the reeds with a cord made of the wool of the 
llama. This pipe has all the reeds open at the lower ends, and yields the 
following scale :— 











Other panpipes are found with reeds closed at the lower end; and still 
’ another form has a double set of the same dimensions,—one set open at 
the bottom and the other closed, those of corresponding length being 
placed opposite each other. By this arrangement octaves are produced, 
the closing of a pipe at one end, as is well known, lowers its pitch an 
octave. This same law is utilized by the modern organ builder in the 
employment of the so-called open and stopped diapasons. 

Two panpipes that are complementary, one furnishing the notes 
that are lacking in the other, are in common use today in parts of South 
America, particularly in Bolivia. They are connected by a long cord and 
the two performers must sound a note alternately in order to produce 
a scale. The Inca had these pipes, as they represented them on their 
pottery vessels. — 

A curious and unique syrinx of stone is shown as Plate VII, Fig. 3. 
The illustration is made from a plaster cast. The original, which was 
procured by the French general, Paroissien, is made of greenish talc, and 
is said to have been found on a mummy ina Peruvian tomb. This inter- 
esting specimen has been described at length by Carl Engel.? Plate VIII, 
Figs. 1 and 2 represent water jars, in human form, made of terra cotta; 
both figures are represented in the act of playing the panpipes. Garcilasso 
says :— 


1Wead, C. K., ‘“‘Contributions to the History of Musical Scales’? (Report, United States Nationa 
Museum for 1900, pp. 417-462, Washington, 1902), 421. 
2Musical Instruments, 66. 


323. 


324 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


In music they arrived to a certain harmony, in which the Indians of Colla did 
more particularly excel, having been the inventors of a certain pipe made of canes 
glued together, every one of which having a different note of higher and lower, in the 
manner of organs, made a pleasing music by the dissonancy of sounds: treble, tenor 
and bass, exactly corresponding and answering each to other; with these pipes they 
often played in consort, and made tolerable music, though they wanted the quavers, 
semiquavers, airs, and many voices which perfect the harmony amongst us.! 


These pipes are as popular with the modern Indians as they were 
with their ancestors in the days of the Inca. Indian couriers frequently 
use this instrument to announce their arrival and departure, as the post- 
horn was used by the driver or guard of a mail coach in England, and as 
it was by a New York coaching party. 

E. G. Squier, who witnessed the Chea or potato festival of the 
Aymara Indians, says:— 


Each group danced vigorously to its united music, which made up in volume what 
it lacked in melody—wild and piercing, yet lugubrious: the shrill pipe [panpipe] 
and the dull drum, with frequent blasts on cow’s horns by amateurs among the 
spectators, filled the ear with discordant sounds. Every man seemed anxious to 
excel his neighbor in the energy of his movements, which were often extravagant; 
but the motions of the women were slow and stately. The music had its cadences,. 
and its emphatic parts were marked by corresponding emphatic movements in the 
dance. The ‘devilish music’ that Cortez heard after his first repulse before Mexico, 
lasting the livelong night, and which curdled his blood with horror, while his captured 
companions were sacrificed to Huitzlipochtli, the Aztec wargod, could not be stranger 
or more fascinating, more weird or savage, than that which rung in our ears during 
the rest of our stay in Tiahuanaco.? 


Lieut. Gibbon describes the ‘church performances: of the Aymari 
Indians thus :— 


The wind-instruments are made of a suocesstial of reeds of different sizes and 
lengths [panpipes], upon which they blow a noise, little resembling music to our ear, 
keeping time with the drummers, the slow-motioned dancers respecting them both. 

. The women again appeared, each bringing with her a jar of chicha, which they 
served out in cups, giving to each individual as much as he could drink, which was no 
small quantity, for the morning was cold. The music again struck up, and the 
women again joined in the dance. One of them came out with her sleeping ‘wawa’ 
slung to her back, which soon commenced a laughable discord; but not a smile could 
be discovered in any of their faces; neither did the woman stop till the dance was 
ended.# 


Bearing this description in mind, it will be interesting to turn to 
Plate V, Fig. 2, which represents figures of men and women in relief, 
forming a band around a pottery water vessel. There is every reason to 





1Royal Commentaries of Peru, Ed. Rycaut, Part I, Book II, Chap. XIV.. mh 2 
2Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas, 306, 307. 
117, Pps Lardner, and Herndon, W. L., Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon (Washington, 1854), 


1924,] j } Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. a0 


believe that the potter who moulded these figures was gathered to his 
fathers long before the coming of the Spaniards, yet he depicts the iden- 
tical scene described by Lieut. Gibbon after so great a lapse of time, show- 
ing how such customs persist with these Indians. The musicians play 
upon panpipes and the drum. The woman with her “wawa”’ (baby) 
strapped to her back is here, nor are the jars of chicha wanting. Chicha is 
a fermented drink made of maize, and is still the national drink of the 
Indians. J. Skinner relates that, 

In alternation of dancing, singing, and drinking they remain for several days 
and nights without intermission, until all the jars are empty. Father Figueroa 
pleasantly observes that he is at a loss to conjecture how they have a head for so 
much noise, a throat for so much exclamation, and a tooth for so much liquor. 

Since the rustic god, Pan, played upon his pipe in Arcadia, his inven- 
tion has been the most highly developed musical instrument among 
hundreds of barbarous and semi-civilized peoples. It was in use in South 
America before Columbus, where it was found from the Isthmus of 
Panama to central Chile. It is doubtful if the panpipe was used in North 
America in prehistoric times. The double whistle, blown in the same 
way, appears to have been the nearest approach to it. The very early 
use of the panpipe in South America precludes the idea that it was an 
importation from the Old World, and stamps it as an independent inven- 
tion of the Indians of that continent. 

The instrument is familiar to us under the names of panpipe, pan- 
flute, syrinx, and mouth organ. It is undoubtedly the precursor of our 
great modern organs; we find it mentioned in the Old Testament (Gen. 
IV, 26) where it is called organ. In its most common form it consists of a 
number of reeds of graduated lengths, fastened together either by cords . 
or splints of cane, or by both splints and cords. The upper ends form a 
horizontal line and the lower a series of steps. Generally, the reeds are 
cut off below the nodes which make them closed or stopped pipes. The 
quality of a stopped pipe is reedy and veiled because of the absence of 
harmonics of even numbers. The wave must traverse the length of the 
tube twice as it is reflected by the closed end. The result is that another 
node is set up at one-third of the length from the upper end, the second 
harmonic at one-fifth of the length, thus dividing the lower four-fifths into 
two equal parts. In the open reed the first harmonic is the octave of 
the fundamental tone; in the closed reed it is the twelfth. Sometimes 
these instruments are made with two rows of reeds in which case the reeds 





1Skinner, Joseph (Ed.), The Present State of Peru: comprising its Geography, Topography, Natural 
History, M ineralogy, Commerce, the Customs and Manners of its Inhabitants, etc. London, 1805. (290). 


326 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


in the second row are open throughout their length and are generally so 
arranged that each closed pipe has an open one opposite to it that gives 
the octave. 

Two panpipes fastened together by a long cord and played by two 
performers are very common in Bolivia today. Each instrument has but 
half the notes of the scale, every other one being absent, and these must 
be given by the man playing the complementary pipe. 

Panpipes are usually made of some kind of cane or reed, but occa- 
sionally of wood, metal, stone, and terra cotta. 

Mr. Safford encountered at Puno, on Lake Titicaca, an orchestra 
composed entirely of panpipes. He says:— 

The performers, who were full-blooded Quichua Indians, sounded the pipes by 
blowing across the opening of the inner or closed reeds, the corresponding outer open 
reeds apparently serving the purpose only of giving volume or quality to the note 
sounded.} 

These instruments heard by Mr. Safford were tuned to our scale and he 
states that this orchestra played the national air of Peru in a creditable 
manner. 

Erland Nordenskiold says :— 

When studying Indian musical instruments we must bear in mind that, in post- 
Columbian times, they have learned a good deal from the Whites and negroes. 

At the mission stations the Indians are always instructed by the missionaries in 
music. At the Bolivian mission-stations it is not unusual to come across Indians who 
very well understand musical notation, though unable to read or write. At the Chiri- 
guano mission stations there are full-blown musical bands.? 

In the Montero collection from prehistoric graves at Ica, Peru, the 
American Museum has a panpipe which has some remarkable peculiarities 
in its construction (See Fig. 1). It has fourteen reeds in two rows; one 
row with reeds open throughout their length; the other, closed at the lower 
end. The closed reeds are not stopped by a node of the cane, but by a 
piece of gourd so nicely cut and fitted as to be airtight. This is the first 
time I have seen the reeds of a prehistoric panpipe so closed. 

There is still a greater peculiarity at the upper ends of the open pipes. 
The reed was not cut off below the node, but through it, in such a way as 
to leave some of it partly closing the bore. A notch was then cut into 
the rim of the cane, and something in the nature of a punch used in this 
notch to force some of the substance of the cane through into the bore in 
the form of a small sharp point. Fig. 2a shows a section of the cane 
and Fig. 2b the upper end of one’as it is in this instrument. 

1Safford W. E., Panpipes (Journal, Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 4, no. 8, 1914). 


2Nordenskiold, Erland, ‘‘The Changes in the Material Culture of Two Indian Tribes under the 
Influence of New Surroundings”’ (Comparative Ethnographical Studies, No. 2, Goteberg, 1920), 116. 


Fig. 1 (41.0-1626). 





Prehistoric Panpipe from Grave in Ica, Peru. 


327 





rs ‘Sige vee cag ay 


1924.] Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. 329 © 


Such reeds do not give out a full volume of tone, but are shrill, like 
the sound produced by blowing across a small key. They could never 
have been used in conjunction with the closed reeds, as aside from the 
difference in volume and quality they do not give the octave of the shorter 
closed reed, with which they are paired. 

Carl Ribbe describing some musical 
instruments of the Solomon Islanders 
says :— 





The best perfected instruments are the so- 
called Pan-pipes having two rows of reeds. a b 
These are not of the kind where the reeds are 
played upon that lay against the mouth, the 
breath being blown over them into the outer row.? 


Rigs 2, a, Section of the 
Cane of one Reed in the Pan- 


ats P pipe shown in Fig. 1; 6, Upper 
Considering what Safford and Ribbe — pnd of a Reed in the Panpipe 


have said, are we warranted in assuming in Fig. 1. 
that the set of open reeds in our Ica pipe 
was perfectly useless, for I cannot see how such reeds can act as resonators? 

It does not seem probable that so much work and ingenuity would 
have been expended in fashioning pipes in so peculiar a manner if they 
were not expected to play some part in the music produced; but it is 
useless to try to fathom the workings of the primitive mind. Still another 
odd feature of this panpipe is that the longest open reed is three times 
the diameter of all the others. 

It is not possible to give an absolutely correct scale for a set of reeds 
that has been buried in the ground for perhaps a thousand years, as the 
cylinders are no longer true; some are badly cracked, and all are more 
or less injured. When I say scale, in connection with prehistoric Peru- 
vian musical instruments, I use the word with considerable mental pro- 
test. Scale implies a regular fixed succession of intervals. Of course, I 
do not expect a primitive man to make two flutes or two panpipes ex- 
actly alike; but I have never yet found two near enough alike to lead 
me to believe that this had been attempted. 

Following are the theoretical vibration numbers of the seven closed 
reeds of this Ica panpipe, as determined by the length of the air columns, 
found by measuring the length of the reeds inside :-— 


1137.93 795.25 

1080.30 651.57 
958 . 92 566.73 
872.80 


1Ribbe, Carl, Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln (Dresden, 1903), 135. 


330 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


In sounding the different notes of such an instrument, we seldom 
find a single one that is exactly, in pitch, like any one in our diatonic 
scale. All that can be done in such a case is to give it the name of the 
note that it most nearly approximates. In this case they may be written: 
—D—B—B?—G—F—E"—D. This is in as close agreement with the 
theoretical vibration numbers as can be expected. 

The Museum has a panpipe from a grave in Arica, Chale. The reeds 
were all formerly stopped by nodes which have been mostly broken out. 
Reckoning from the inside measurements of the canes the vibration 
numbers are:— 


666.75 406. 40 
576.68 — 0/2.23 
513.96 : 333.37 
458.83 Pet ae 333.37 — 


This pipe is peculiar in that the two longest reeds are of exactly the 
same length. 

There are four panpipes from New Guinea in the Museum’s collec- 
tions. One has four canes, the others only three. The canes are held in 
place by cords near the top and bottom. In one case the cord is made of 
human hair; in the others, of some vegetable fiber. All are closed near 
the lower end by the node of the cane. Two of these pipes give the fol- 
lowing vibration numbers :— | 


402.56 632.16 


414.29 457.54 
StU Unis 520.63 
592.66 


The first pipe has its shortest reed in the center, while in the other we 
find the shortest on the left, followed by its longest. The vibration 
numbers seem to show that no attempt was made to tune these pipes to 
any scale. If any crude approach to an air was played on one of psa it 
could not be duplicated on the other. 

Figs. 3 and 4 show two panpipes in terra cotta. They are part of the 


Eleodora Pachas collection from prehistoric graves in Nazca, Peru. This : 


valuable collection which contains some four hundred pottery objects is _ 


now the property of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Founda- 
tion, whose authorities have kindly loaned me these panpipes for ey 
and publication. 


The larger of the two measures 28.5 cm. on the side of its longest — 


“reed’’, the smaller, 14.5 cm. Both instruments have ten tubes with 


1924.] _ Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. 301 
openings at the upper end in the form of an ellipse; but on looking into 
them they are seen to be otherwise perfectly cylindrical. They appear to 
have been made by introducing a cylindrical piece of wood or a section 
of cane while the clay was plastic, and pressing the material to this core. 
After this was withdrawn the opening was pressed out round. 





Fig. 3. Terra Cotta Panpipe from Grave in Nazca, Peru. 
Courtesy of Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. 


These pipes sound very freely, giving forth a loud, penetrating 
tone, somewhat metallic in quality. Both are painted in two colors, dark 
gray or chocolate color and bright red. Each of these colors covers about 
half of their surface and is separated by a line of white. Chocolate color 





oon Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. (Vol. XV, — 


and red are not differentiated in a photograph, but the white line running 
lengthwise, shows the division between the two colors. 
orated with white crosses. Below are the vibration numbers of the tubes 





Both are dec- 


Fig. 4. Terra Cotta Panpipe from Grave in Nazca, Peru. 
Courtesy of Museum of the American Indian, ES Foundation. 


in these instruments. The column at the left is for the larger panpipe, 


the one at the right for the smaller panpipe. ° 


310.59 
372.71 
476.25 
585.01 
649.43 
793.75 
902.36 
1008 . 52 
1207.74. 
1382.66 


Panpipes and Culture Connection. 


613.39 
779.32 
592. 50 


1174.32 | 
1318.84 | 


1558. 64 
1824.46 
1993.60 


2449.28 
2857.50. 


The highly advanced aa 


reached in several of the arts in parts of America before the discovery by 


Columbus has naturally led many to the belief that at some remote time - | : 


there had been communication between the peoples of the 08 and the 


New World. 


1924.] Mead, M ulead: Thatmaments of the Inca. 300 


First and last almost every eastern country has for a time done duty 
as the source of this or that thing found in America. When any American 
form has been found to be similar to that in any distant land (for ex- 
ample, Dr. Graebner’s claim in connection with crutch-paddles)! cul- 
tural connection has often been seen, little consideration being given to 
the possibility of independent invention. _ 

Of late years several anthropologists have turned their attention 
to the South Sea Islands, believing that they have discovered convinc- 
ing evidence of cultural connection between their peoples and those in 
parts of South America. As the most striking argument in support of 
this theory deals with the old Inca musical instrument, the panpipe, I 
shall give its claims with comments. : 

In his paper entitled: “‘ Ueber ein akustisches Kriterium fiir Kultur- 
zusammenhange’’? Dr. Erich von Hornbostel believes he has produced 
indisputable evidence of culture connection between the peoples of the 
South Sea and Northwest Brazil, by means of similarities in their 
panpipes. : 

Although Dr. von Hornbostel’s claim has been endorsed by some 
ethnologists I have seen no reason to change the opinion I formed of 
it when the article appeared: that it was a remarkably good and pains- 
taking piece of work, and convincing, if further tests gave the same re- 
sults as he had undoubtedly obtained, which, however, seemed to me 
could not possibly be the case. 

For a better understanding of what follows I give here his opening 
sentences :-— 

If one surveys the manifold forms of the Panpipe and its distribution over the 
world one cannot overlook the fact that the type having double rows—that have 
opposite each closed pipe an open one (of about the same length) which gives the 
octave—is only found in two limited territories widely separated: in the Solomon 
Islands, and in western Polynesia (Fiji, Samoa) on one side, and Peru and Bolivia 
on the other. Even the characteristic ligature of the Solomon Islands—flat sticks 
with threads strung crosswise—is found in Peru and Brazil. 

Here we are referred to this somewhat contradictory footnote :— 

It is true that similar ones are found elsewhere, for instance in upper Egypt. 

Dr. von Hornbostel’s principal claim to a discovery of cultural con- 
nection between the peoples of Polynesia and of northwestern Brazil 
rests on a most peculiar musical scale which he believes common to the two 
localities. In a technical paper “Ueber einige Panpfeifen aus Nord- 
westbrasilien’’! he describes this scale at length, calling the intervals a 


1Graebner, F, ‘‘ Kriickenruder”’ (Baessler-Archiv, III, 1913), 191-204. 
2Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, XLIII, 1911, 601-615. 


304 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


circle of fourths (eine art Quatenzirkel). He says it is formed by the 
help of partial tones caused by over-blowing. His description of how an 
Indian may duplicate a panpipe will fully explain the nature of his seale. 

The Indian may take the longest reed for measure and pitch. For 
the third reed he must cut one of a length that when overblown its first 
partial tone (a twelfth above the fundamental) will be identical with the 
double octave of the first reed. He is to proceed in the same way to cut 
his fifth reed by the third and so on with the odd numbered reeds. For 
the even numbers he begins by halving the interval between the first and 
third for the second reed, after which the other even numbers are made 
in the same way as the odd numbers. 

Dr. von Hornbostel gives the following table of vibration numbers 
which he obtained from two panpipes, one from northwest Brazil, the 
other from the Solomon Islands; also the theoretical vibration numbers. 


1 2 3 4 s 6 
Brazil 41575 481-52 560) bape un 374.5. 439.5 
Theoretical 415.5 481.6° 559.6 650.4378 439.2 
Solomon Islands 415 473 5b7. 651 379.3 440 


Only the results he obtained from the first six reeds are given. 
Dr. von Hornbostel is a scientific, careful workman and I have not the 
least doubt as to the correctness of his vibration numbers although they 
are practically alike, wonderfully near when we consider that the reeds 
were cut by two primitive peoples so far separated, and that these pan- 
pipes were copies of others that had been made through the centuries. — 
I can only see in these figures a very remarkable coincidence; otherwise, 
T must believe that two primitive peoples with no delicate standard i in- 
strument have retained, for many generations, an absolute pitch, a tone 
with just so many vibrations to the second, and have done this by some 
-cutting instrument, wild reeds, and the human ear. I feel sure any manu- 
facturer of wind instruments would declare this an impossibility. 

Dr. von Hornbostel tells us that to prove cultural connection the 
panpipes must be similar in construction, have the same scale, and be 
practically alike in absolute pitch. Now the Solomon Islands pipes are 
made of two rows of reeds; one row with the lower ends closed, the other — 
row open to give the octave. The Brazilian pipes have the reeds all in 
one row with the lower ends all closed. The manner of fastening the — 
reeds together varies, but is often the same as in the Solomon Islands, 
which, however, is not peculiar to these two regions. Except for the liga- 





1See Koch-Griinberg, Theodor, Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern (Berlin, 1909-10), Vol. 2, 378-391. ‘ 


1924.] Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. 335 


tures which keep the reeds in place it will be seen that they differ radically 
in construction. 

I have lately examined fourteen panpipes from the Rio Caiary- 
Uaupés. It was on this river that Dr. Koch-Griinberg collected the 
Brazilian pipes studied by Dr. von Hornbostel. It was my intention in 
the beginning of this investigation to have determined the vibration 
numbers of these fourteen panpipes; but after working out two of them 
with the following results, and sounding the notes of the other twelve 
I found them to vary so greatly (no two very near together) that it 
seemed a waste of time and labor to continue. I met with no success in 
trying to find a uniformity in the pitch relationship of the reeds of the 
different instruments. In fact, the same scale (?) cannot be played on 
any two of them. 


1122.94 870.80 661.05 508.00 396.94 306.90 249.55 193.09 141.00 
1040.78 870.85 735.72 584.55 488.02 367.64 296.45 245.37 


Flute. On Plate IX, twenty-six flutes are represented. Nos. 1, 2 and 
3 are of cane; Nos. 7, 8 and 9 are made from the wing bone (ulna) of 
the pelican; Nos. 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 from combined ulna and radius 
of the llama; No. 13 isa small gourd. All the others are made from the 
ulne of deer. They are simply tubes, open throughout their length, and 
all belong to the class known as “‘end-blown.”’ 

In playing, the breath, crossing the opening at the upper end, 
impinges on the sharp edge, which is often notched, setting up vibration 
in the column of air within the instrument, thus producing the sound. 
It is a well-known law that the frequency of vibration, or, in other words, 
the pitch of a note produced, depends chiefly on the length of the column 
of air within the flute. 

In the flutes represented the vents or holes for changing the length 
of the vibrating column of air vary in number from three to seven. In 
those made of cane they are all on the upper side, while the bone flutes 
often have one of the holes on the under side, which was closed by the 
thumb. Nos. 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 14 and 17 to 26 are of the latter kind. 

Many of the scales on pp. 338-339 are written an octave lower than 
those produced from the instruments. This brings them all within a 
reasonable compass and makes it much easier to compare their intervals. 
It must always be kept in mind that the written note is in many cases 
not the one given out y the instrument, but the one nearest to it in our 
diatonic scale. 

All attempts to discover any rule or law governing the positions of 
the openings or vents have been unsuccessful. A first glance at several 


336 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


of these flutes, particularly those made of cane, gives the impression that 
an attempt at equal spacing had been made; but a second shows such 
a variation in distances that this seems doubtful. The bone flutes (Plate 
IX, Figs. 25 and 26), are of the same length, yet a great difference in the 
position of the holes is apparent at a glance. Weare led to the conchision 
that these ancient flute-makers were not governed by set laws, but that 
each made his instrument according to his own idea. That the tones 
produced are in false key-relationship is 
not to be wondered at when we consider 
the imperfections in their construction; in 
fact, the flutes are sadly out of tune. 
What the late John Comfort Filmore 
wrote of the Omaha flageolet Indian may 
apply equally to these flutes :— 


The imperfections are plainly due to the 

limitations, not of the Indian’s perception, so 
much as of hisscientific knowledge. The flageolet 
is evidently built “by guess,’’ and only remotely 
approximates to the Indian voice in accuracy 
of intonation. , 
Those acquainted with the difficulties that 
beset the maker of a flute at the present 
day will see nothing strange in the lack 
of method in the location of the vents in 
the flutes of these ancient Peruvians. 
Mr. Wead remarks :— | 

In practice these holes never can open so 
freely to the outside air that the portion of the 
tube beyond them may be considered as removed 
(the possibility or necessity of cross-fingering 
proves this to the player), so that the proper 
location and diameter of the holes to produce the 
notes of our scale of even quality are fixed, not 
by a simple law, as the frets on the guitar are located, but by laborious experi- 
menting to get a standard instrument which is then reproduced with Chinese 
fidelity .? 

The question arises, were the intervals produced on these flutes 
satisfactory to the Indian? That the first attempt was not so in very 
many cases, we know from the indisputable evidence of his work. Fig. 4 
of Plate IX, shows the under side of a flute. It will be seen that the original - 





4 
+ 


Fig. 5 (B-7946, 3846). Bone 
_ Flutes. 


1Omaha Indian Music, Alice C. Fletcher, Appendix, 73. 
2Wead, zbid., 426. 


1924.] Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. 307 


thumb hole has been closed (by a stopper made of gourd) and another 
perforated above it. No, 7 has had four of the six original holes plugged 
and others bored near them,—only traces of the gourd plugs remaining. 
No. 17 shows plainly the plug in the original hole, and the vent which 
was afterward made above it. No. 19 shows two sets of holes. Of the 
plugs, only traces remain; but the one in the under side (thumb hole) is 
still in as perfect condition as those to be seen in Figs. 17 and 21. In No. 
20 they have entirely disappeared. The scales of the twenty-six flutes 
shown on Plate IX are given on pages 338 and 339. They have been care- 
fully determined in conformity with the international pitch: vibration 
number a'=435. 

Many of the tones produced from these instruments only approxi- 
mate, in pitch, to some one of the notes of our familiar twelve tone piano 
scale. In many instances the variation amounts to nearly a quarter of a 
tone. Considering the age and condition of these flutes, it is safe to say 
that in some cases the scales given here are incomplete, and this applies 
particularly to those made of cane. | 

No. 14 of this set appears much longer than it really is,—the bird 
figures being carved on a prolongation of one side of the bone, below the 
tube. 

Nos. 4, 11 and 12, represented on Plate VIII, may be classed with the 
flutes. No. 12 is made from a shell (Fasciolaria princeps, Sowb.). It has 
_two vents: one perforated through the top of the spire, the other in its 
side. No. 4 is an imitation of a shell in terra cotta. It is decorated with a 
human face and geometrical designs, which are not shown in the illus- 

tration. The scales of these flutes are given below :— 











No. 11, also of terra cotta, is broken and the scale cannot be ascertained. 
These instruments are sounded by the breath impinging on the sharp edge 
of the outer lip of the shell. 

Fig. 6 shows a terra cotta flute from a prehistoric grave at Ica, 
Peru. It is a new style of flute to me, inasmuch as the lower end is 
turned up at a right angle to the body of the instrument. It is of the 
end blown type, 83 inches long, and has five vents on the upper side, 
also one for the thumb on the under side, between the fourth and fifth 
vents above. Whether the opening in the turned up end, which looks 


DESCRIPTIONS OF FLUTES REPRESENTED ON PLATE IX, 


Figure. ‘Museum No. Length in inches. Scale. 4 





pibiiineiielia WARE SM S52 ot 
Sse, HR a Se 











Nore: The flute materials are: 1 to 3, cane; 13, gourd; the remainder, bone. 


338 
























































































































































Figure, Museum No. Length in eee Scale. 
B Sco ee ene 
eed 3 pote eae ae hr av i 
8013 — 
oe ee 
eck 6, Sd Area MeNCT ee 
4929 | = 
B Se TET Pa r 
sae a a 67! __ Ye rad STi te ARMs 
26484 é =# sas 22 Semmes 
-f- e o—__° 
oe 8 oe 
26482 “YP SEN 
Co Ae SS Ps San 
B — 9 } 
17 —— 6% ee one 
7944 | aoe LES A ARRON § 
a | s SUC ete ct a aeRO tee Ug, Ieee BUC eM acc I 
SEL ALP SALE, BP AS @ 
} B , | 1 
18 tie a eg te a) ie ss si rae 
7954 Seg : 
2 a ee! Rois 5 ais Seger SGP AP dae NS Miia) ef a Pe OL MO 
B : 7 See ete cae 
19 aS 45 rat tose os oy Seer ram rere ee F 
; 7955 oe 
an es Fa ie eee SS aes SUE Ae Serer Be aloe ee or St Se ee Ps 
el _ # ont gael oe 
B is Se ORS eae MY Wn ee 
0 a 4a ——- © ns ES : u 
j 7948 : G . ae ae 
SoH 6 A PE, Oe SUN eg aes A AR A A COL IED ie 
B | t= SPAT. RRM AG ERA ol 
6 Sonesta ; 4 a 4 ——_g—_4+#,—__ + #__ ed 
21 oe Ge pore eet 
ALE MEcchnce El ec ne, fe ea BUG 2% Ase Teepe le eee Raye is 
2 ZS | § ee 
; 7949 ne a Aa ENO Os 
—_—_ooooOoOoOoOoOoOoO" FOOL AA ane es MPR Ae apiece EMBED D2 gh Sul Sth cn A 
B 5 ‘ sureeene te we 
23 5054 ie A he Par ones ae eee cee 
: ; . SUD fea ES a A Aree ELLEN SUA OR RM Cet 5 SpE TE 
B CRORGMAIE IED 2 ae TENE TID ads LV 
Bias had 6 MRA BREANY TES UES IP Nil el EIN ak 
e 7946 ae et eae 
SOD Oe a Peis Saas i re te oe ne Os ae 
B : EM MAMI! BT TL UO ce Yi 
- 5059 a = oe 
BU es S258 Shae RSS er, See Se ees 
B | = ore re eee cee 
26 — 750 ‘A Go Pasa Lae 


339 


* 


340 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. (Vol. XV, 


like a vent, was stopped or not, there is no means of knowing. This 
makes it useless to attempt to determine its scale. The flute is of black 
-~ ware and, as the photograph shows, is decorated 

; | with incised designs on the upper side, and has 

a puma figure near the upper end. This puma 
was moulded and attached to the instrument 
before firing. It is a powerful instrument and 
the tones, although so loud, are not disagreeable 
in quality. | : 
Resonator Whistle. Whistles of the resonator 
class have a wide distribution and have been 
found in different sections of Peru. They are 
usually made of terra cotta, but sometimes of 
other materials. The kind most commonly met 
with emit but one or two tones and generally 
go by the name of signal whistles or bird-calls. 
The resonator type reached its highest form of 
development in Chiriqui and parts of Central — 
America, where they commonly took the human 
form or that of some well-known animal or bird, 
and in most cases the grotesque element predomi- 
nated in the representation. The openings (vents) 
to the air chamber in the body of these instru- 
ments vary in number, but seldom exceed four. 
Plate VIII, Fig. 13 shows an instrument of this 
class. This specimen is one and three-eighths 
inches high, and measures two and three-quarters 
inches from the nose to the tip of the tail. Its — 
two vents are on the same side, yielding the 
following scale :— 


= 





No. 15, on the same plate, is of wood and has one _ 
vent: (Its tones are * 





Fig. 6 (41.0-1625). Barr 
Terra Cotta Flute from Pad aoe pea 
a Prehistoric Grave at fae 


Ica, Peru. 


1924.] Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. | 341 


No. 6, on Plate VII, and Nos. 8, 10, and 14 on Plate VIII, are without 
vents and have but one note each. ie 

Whymper, who gives an excellent account of the Incan remains in 
Kcuador, figures three of these whistles grotesquely resembling the human 
form. He has this to say of them:— 

Then there are the musical pottery whistles, delightfully ugly things, which are 
sometimes more useful to carry than letters of introduction. Simple airs can be got 


out of them, and on the homeward journey my people lightened the way by playing 
on these primitive instruments.} 





Fig. 7 (B-9585). Gold Ornament from Trujillo, 
Peru, showing Trumpets in Use. _ 


Trumpet. The trumpet in its various forms is undoubtedly one of 
the most ancient of wind instruments and its distribution in prehistoric 
times was all but universal. Two forms of this instrument were common in 
Peru: the conch and a trumpet of terra cotta. Both of these forms are 
shown in Fig. 7. 

This illustration shows the ornamentation on one side of a gold 
ornament found in a prehistoric grave at Trujillo, Peru. It is double- 
convex in form, consisting of two thin, concavo-convex pieces which are 
not joined by solder, as is sometimes the case in ornaments of this kind, 
but are held together by the edges of one of the pieces being turned 


tightly over the other. The figures are in repoussé work. 





1Whymper, Edward, Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator (New York, 1892), 281. 


342 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


Plate VII, Fig. 1 represents a remarkably fine specimen of the shell 
trumpet. It has a copper mouthpiece, and is ornamented with an en- 
graved figure of a warrior. The shell is a Strombus galeatus, Swains. 
Unfortunately the mouthpiece is so badly corroded that the scale of the 
instrument cannot be ascertained. Fig. 2, on the same plate, is of.a 

terra cotta trumpet and is one of sev- 
eral in the collection in which the shell 
th 







form has been reproduced in clay. It 
would seem that this was frequently 
done when shells could not be obtained. 
This specimen is in perfect condition. 
Its scale is as follows :— 











. 


ay un PE SN iM 
ee in NIN ith 
dit ay sy 















The lowest or fundamental tone is 
produced on the open instrument; the 
next step above in the scale, by intro- 
Fig. 8. Blowing a Shell Trumpet See ua hand a Bhar wie tree ate 
in Prehistoric Mexico. From a pic- the opening of the “shell.” For the 
torial manuscript in the Florentine | next higher note the hand is pushed 
Biblioteca Nazionale, Folio 23. still farther into the cavity, and so on 
until the highest tone of the instrument 
is reached. In the older natural or French horn, the so-called stopped 
tones are obtained in much the same way. 

Fig. 8 shows that the shell trumpet was played in are this way 
in Mexico in prehistoric times. This illustration is from a Pictorial 
Manuscript in the Florentine Biblioteca Nazionale; Fol. 23. See Codex 
Vaticanus B, Seler, p. 162. 

Plate VIII, Fig. 9 represents a clay trumpet similar to that represented 
onthe gold ornament from Trujillo figured on page 341; the only difference 
is the shape of the “bell’’ which in the latter takes the form of an animal - 
head. Besides its fundamental tone (B), only its octave can be produced. 
The other harmonics or overtones, on account of the material and its 
faulty construction, are absent. Nos. 5 and 6, on the same plate, are 
trumpets of wood. The mouthpieces are shallow and cup-shaped, as in 
No. 9, just described. No. 61s badly cracked; but No. 5 is entire, and the 
following tones can be produced from it:— : 


1 GAS 


Oe ee 


1924.) Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. 343 





The trumpet is frequently mentioned in the early accounts of Peru. 


_ Garcilasso, giving an account of the battle between the army of the Inca 


Viracocha and the Chanchas, says:— 

Both armies remained the whole night upon their guard with sentinels set on each 
side; and in the morning, by break of day the squadrons arming themselves, with 
great noise and shouts, with sounds of trumpets, and timbrels, and cornets, they began 
the onset.! 

Alonso de Ovalle remarks :— 

The sound of the drum and trumpet is only to show them the necessity of their 
meeting in arms.? 

Prescott tells us that at the siege of Cuzco (1536) :— 

The Spaniards were roused by the hideous clamor of conch, trumpet and atabal, 
mingled with fierce war-cries of the barbarians.’ 

Quite a number of instruments that have been described as trumpets 
are found in South America. Some of these are eight feet or more long. 
They are variously made of cane, bamboo, wood, and bark wound spirally. 
Many are true trumpets, either end or side blown, while others belong to 
the flute or flageolet class. A trumpet called Juruparis is found on the 
Uaupés River. It is always kept in a secret place and at the time of the 
celebration of a certain ceremony is brought out at night and sounded 
outside the molocca. Women may not look upon this trumpet on pain of 
death. A similar instrument is also found on the Orinoco. It does not 
appear that the Inca had any of these trumpets as none of them have 
been found in their graves, nor are they represented on their pottery 
vessels, . 

Double Whistling Jar. Plate VIII, Fig. 3 shows a double musical 
water bottle. It consists of two pottery vessels connected near the 
bottom in such a way that water passes freely from one to the other. 
Near the top of the first or front jar (usually surmounted by a human or 
some animal figure) is the opening of the whistle. When the jars have 
been partly filled and are swung backward and forward, a series of whis- 
tling sounds is produced. As the vessel swings forward and upward, the 
water is lowered in the first jar and raised in the other; in the backward 
motion it rushes back into the first, forcing the air out through the 


1Royal Commentaries of Peru, Part I, Book Vv, Chap. XVIII. 
2An Historical Relation of C hile, (J ohn Pinkerton, ed., London, 1813), 122, 
3Conquest of Peru, Vol. 2, 47. 


344 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV, 


whistle. It has often been said that the sound emitted by these jars re- 
sembles the cry of the animal represented on the vessel. A careful ex- 
amination of eighty-five of these whistling jars leads to the conclusion 
that this is the result of a lively imagination—that they are whistles pure 
and simple. 

Plate VII, Fig. 4 shows a nondescript instrument made of terra cotta. 
The tone is produced by blowing into either of the two holes in exactly 
the same manner that the trumpet is sounded. ‘The lips, in both cases, 
act as reeds, causing the vibration of the air within the instrument. 





SrrRINGED INSTRUMENTS 


A number of modern writers have stated that the tinya, a kind of 
guitar with five strings, was known to the Peruvians in pre-Spanish 
times. This seems as improbable as Ranking’s story of fiddlers being 
attached to the court of Montezuma.! Garcilasso de la Vega, in his 
chapter entitled “‘Of the Geometry, Geography, Arithmetick and Musick 
known to the Indians,” gives no account of any stringed instrument.? 
There is scarcely a chapter in the ‘‘Cronica del Peru”’ of Cieza de Leon 
that does not contain mention of some musical instrument, but we find 
no hint of instruments of this class. The Peruvians themselves, as we 
have seen, left behind them many of their instruments and numerous 
representations of them on their pottery vessels and metal ornaments; 
but among them all, not one belonging to the lyre type can be found. 
Professor O. T. Mason says :— 


After looking over the musical collection of the United States National Museum 
and such literature as has been collected by the Bureau of American Ethnology, I 
have come to the conclusion that stringed musical instruments were not known to 
any of the aborigines of the Western Hemisphere before Columbus.’ 


Professor E. 8. Morse agrees with Dr. Mason that there is no evidence of 
a pre-Columbian stringed device.‘ 

I believe that no claim has as yet been made for the existence of the 
musical bow in Peru; and what Dr. Henry Balfour says of this most 
primitive of stringed instruments is very important, as showing with what 
caution the evidence should be considered before pronouncing any in- 
strument to be of pre-Spanish origin :— 


In viewing the various types of musical bow to be found in the New World, I 
must say: that I feel that the case of the claims of this instrument to be regarded as 
indigenous (pre-Columbian) in the Americas can only as yet be dismissed with the 
verdict of not proven. I can find no absolutely convincing evidence to prove the case, 
and in view of the certainty of many varieties having been introduced by the immi- 
grants from Africa, it will require very strong evidence to establish the claim.® 


Although not conclusive, such evidence as we have at the present 
time is against the existence of any form of stringed instrument in Peru 
before the coming of the Spaniards. 


¢ 





1Ranking, John, Historical Researches on the Conquest of tes ee exico, Bogota, Natchez, and Talomeca 
in the Thirteenth Century, by the Mongols, etc. (London, 1827), 3 

2Royal Commentaries of Peru, Part I, Book 2, Chap. 14. 

3Mason, zhid. 

4Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly, March, 1899. 

5The Natural History of the Musical Bow Oued: 1899), 50-51. 


345 


CONCLUSION 


Undoubtedly the most important instruments were the drum, the 
various kinds of flutes and the panpipe. Early writers frequently speak 
of the Indians dancing to the music of the pipe and tabor. The ancient 
potters have left us representations of these scenes on their water vessels 
(Plate V, Figs. 1 and 2). These dances appear to have remained un- 
changed in 1649 when Alonso de Ovalle wrote this quaint account :— 

Their way of dancing is with little jumps, and a step or two, not rising much 
from the ground, and without any capers such as the Spanish use; they dance all 
together in a ring.! | 

A number of songs have been recorded which have been known to the 
Indians for generations, and believed by them to have been handed down 
unchanged, but their authenticity is, of course, doubtfui—even the source 
from which they came being uncertain. Negroes were introduced early 
into all the Spanish colonies, and doubtless many of their tunes were 
adopted by the Indians. Garcilasso tells us that when he left Peru in 
1560 there were then five Indians residing in Cuzco who were great 
masters on the flute, and could play readily, by book, any tune that was 
laid before them.? In view of these conditions, we may well be sceptical 
concerning the claims of any music said to be pre-Spanish. 

We now come to that much vexed question, What musical seale was 
known to the ancient Peruvians? In the absence of any authentic music 
we must look to their instruments as the only source of information. 
It has been believed commonly that they employed the five-toned or 
pentatonic scale, so widely used in the primitive music of various peoples, 
which one of our most eminent musical scholars and critics insisted 
“represents a stage in musical development and is neither a racial nor 
geographical indication.’’? In this scale the step of a semitone is avoided 
by omitting the fourth and seventh degrees in major and the second and 
sixth in minor. 

Some of the scales given in this paper seem to indicate the use of this 
five-toned scale, but there are puzzling exceptions. If there were five 
Indians at Cuzco alone, in 1560, who could play anything by note, there 
must have been many more in other parts of the empire. These Indians 
played from European music, and of course, were familiar with our dia- 
tonic scale. The number who are familiar with our diatonic scale has 
been constantly increasing for more than three hundred years, especially 
in the neighborhood of the larger towns where it is not uncommon to find - 

1Historical Relation of Chile, 117. 

2Royal Commentaries of Peru, Part 1, Book 2, Chap. 14. 

3H. E. Krehbiel in Neu York Tribune, September 8, 1901 
' 346 


Ee en oS we SPOON RRO eM ee RS nS, ie ee ENE Le Sone ee 
= J ¥ 3 4 ‘ aia . is b 4 om 





1924.] Mead, Musical Instruments of the Inca. 347 


panpipes tuned to our intervals, or at least as near as the Indians could 
make them. : 

Some recent studies seem to prove that some of the old Inca music 
is still to be heard in the Peruvian sierras, and as songs are likely to be 
retained longer than almost any other feature of Indian life, this is 
possible. An article by Sr. Alberto Villalba Mufioz, in ‘ Inter-America’’ 
for April, 1922, first called my attention to the work of Daniel A. Robles 
in recording Indian music. Mufioz says:— 

To Sefior Daniel A. Robles, Peru today owes the key and point of departure 
that make it possible to recognize the true Incan music, and to distinguish it with 
absolute certainty from the colonial music. 

This means that one is in the five tone and the other in our twelve tone 
scale. The Incan scale is given as follows:—Re, Fa, Sol, La, Do. This 
is the minor form of the pentatonic scale, using Re as the fundamental 
tone. In this scale there are no semitones. By substituting others of the 


~ above notes for Re as the fundamental we shall get major as well as 


minor keys. 

Sr. Robles’ claim that he has recorded the old Incan music is en- 
dorsed* by Raoul and Marguerite d’Harcourt in “La Music dans la 
Sierra Andine de la Paz a Quito.”! They state that they found Robles 
in Lima but were not fortunate enough to hear him render these airs 
upon the piano. 

Later Madame d’Harcourt wrote down some two hundred Indian 
songs which they say gave them “A complete view of folk-music of the 
Andean region.’ Some of the recorded songs were pure Inca pieces in the 
five-tone scale, others they style mixed-breed. These last they consider 
to have been originally Incan songs that have been much changed since 


_ the Indians came in contact with the Spaniards. 


Since writing the above I have met Sefior Robles and by invitation 
passed a most enjoyable hour with him at his temporary New York home. 
I found him a very agreeable, intelligent gentleman, and an enthusiast 


in his work. He played to me quite a number of songs that he has 


recorded. They certainly are primitive; in the five-tone scale, and differ 


e greatly from the modern Indian music. 


After studying the work done by Sefior Daniel A. Robles which has | 
been confirmed by José Castro, Leandro Albifia, Monsieur and Madame 


_ d@’Harcourt, and others, I think we may consider the scale problem solved. 


The Inca used the pentatonic scale. 


1Journal de la Société des Americanistes de Paris, N. S. Tome XII, pp. 21-54, 1920. 








p. Pap. A. M.N. H. 


iN: 
<p 
\ 


(Pp LE x? i 
PC 
RANS 


struments in Use. 


Ldn 





Vou. XV, Pate VI. 











Lull 
Musical Instruments: Drums, Rattles, Bells and Cymbals. 





Awnrarop. Par. A. M. N. H. 








*XULIAG eB pur TUS Jo sop}eYy pus syodumnay, :spuouN}suy [BOSNIAL 





‘HN ‘WV ‘d¥d ‘d0uHINV 


"ILA FIV ‘AXs'TOA 


> 





‘yoduinay, pue ‘xuXg ‘sediduvg ‘sopstyM :S}uouNA}sUy [BOIS IAL 


ae 


eS sherk 


UA. 
is ~ 
pe 


‘HN ‘WV ‘dVg ‘dOuHINy 





‘IIIA SLVIg ‘AX “TOA 
_ 7 _ —_—_ 


oer 
“gh 


Vee 





‘so 
qn] uBIANIEg jo sod& 
L 


g1 














Big et 


LV, 
Wid JAX “TOA 





Sey SU ae 


- 
a 


\ 


Ss 





